


Our Fates So Tightly Intertwined

by Jolli_Bean



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Anastasia (1997), Alternate Universe - Anastasia Fusion, CW: Some brief depictions of self-harm in a dream sequence, CW: car crash, Connor is a lost prince, Hank is a conman trying to use Connor to get the reward money from the empress, Human AU, M/M, Memory Loss, a very LOOSELY based AU, and then they fall in love, that's it that's the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 07:56:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19848871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jolli_Bean/pseuds/Jolli_Bean
Summary: Hank is about to reach for him, even if he doesn't know how it can help, when Connor says, "And how am I supposed to convince someone I'm the prince when I don't even know who I am?""That's what you have us for," Hank offers."I'll...what? Memorize facts about the prince and then regurgitate them, even if they aren't true about me? Lie about stupid things like tea? I just..." He cuts himself off, pushing a hand through the curls hanging over his forehead in frustration."Just what?"Connor looks down at his hands, shaking his head. "I just thought someone might know more about me than I do. I thought I could tell the truth about myself and finally have someone fill in all the pieces I don't know.""Okay," Hank breathes, grasping him by the shoulder. "It's going to be okay."And of course he doesn't know that, but if everything goes according to plan, he and Ben will be long gone with the reward money before he does.~~Connor can't remember anything from before he was eight years old, except for vague details and the sense that he's cursed. Hank is down on his luck and just needs to get out.(It's an Anastasia AU)





	Our Fates So Tightly Intertwined

**Author's Note:**

> There is some art inspired by this fic! 
> 
> [Evelyn](https://twitter.com/wow__thenn) created a gorgeous gif of Hank and Connor dancing on the ship, which you can see [here!](https://twitter.com/wow__thenn/status/1150835588825698304) Their favorite panels from the gif can also be seen [here.](https://twitter.com/wow__thenn/status/1150941963073404928)
> 
> [Kay](https://twitter.com/Kayroos_) did some lovely art of Hank and Connor in the original movie costumes [here](https://twitter.com/Kayroos_/status/1151336316375842816) and of Hank and Connor dancing together [here!](https://twitter.com/Kayroos_/status/1151336319802576897)
> 
> Go give them some love! <3

The dowager empress would never say it out loud, but Connor is her favorite grandchild. The eight-year-old is bright and inquisitive and sensitive, and Amanda adores him. Leaving him behind in Russia was the hardest part when she made the decision to move to Paris. She wanted to be somewhere quieter as she grew older, but she misses him more than words can say.

She wants to bring him with her, have him study in Paris for a time, and his siblings, too. Tensions are only growing higher in Russia, and the Arkaits, as the royal family, find themselves trapped in the eye of the storm. The children would be safer in Paris, and when Amanda returns to Russia to visit, it’s one of the first subjects she plans to broach.

She never has the chance.

She’s there when Elijah Kamski, the fraud of a holy man the palace once brought in to treat Niles, the youngest prince, and his chronic illness, storms the palace. Kamski would help Niles for a time, but he would always get worse again, and eventually he was thrown out of the palace, disgraced and cast aside.

Amanda is afraid of him. Everyone in the royal family is. He spits anger and rage, he curses them and swears they’ll die within the fortnight. Amanda holds Connor close to her, and when she tucks him in that night, when he’s quiet and she can see the fear in his eyes, she tells him that it’s not real. There’s no such thing as a curse.

But whether it was Kamski’s influence or a true curse or just the spark of unhappiness in Russia finally fanned into a flame, the Winter Palace is sieged within two days. Insurgents break down the gates, tear down the statue of the czar, and storm the palace.

Amanda is with Connor when it happens, and they flee through the corridors together. Connor will be killed if he’s found, she knows – it won’t matter that he’s only a boy.

She’s so close, on that night she loses everything, to at least not losing him.

The steward with the blond curls and the blue eyes finds them trapped in the kitchens, sends them through the servants’ quarters. They escape the palace and tear across the ice, only for Kamski to stop them, to try to pull them back. Amanda looks into his eyes and sees only death inside. It’s only because it’s been a warm winter and the ice breaks under him that Amanda manages to tear Connor out of his grasp at all.

They run to the train station – they need to get out now, they must. It will only be a matter of time before the insurgents are moving through Russia’s streets, too, but the train is already leaving. Someone reaches for Amanda’s hand and pulls her on, but Connor isn’t fast enough. He runs behind the train, tears in his eyes, and Amanda tries desperately to reach his hand. She begs for them to stop, cries out to no one in particular, but of course the train doesn’t.

She sees Connor fall as he tries to catch them, disappearing into the crowd. It’s the last she sees him.

Amanda goes back, of course, searches the entire city for her grandson even if Russia is in the midst of a revolution. There’s never any sign of him, but she refuses to give up hope over the years. The rest of the Arkait family is confirmed dead, but Connor…she won’t believe that Connor is gone.

She offers a sizable reward for his safe return, generous even for a woman of her wealth, and she waits for him to return home.

* * *

Over the eighteen years since the Winter Palace fell, Hank has married and had a son and everything he ever wanted, and then lost it all, too.

With the Arkait line overthrown, he no longer works as a steward. Instead, he and his friend, Ben, live in the abandoned palace and run petty cons to put food on the table. They’ve never had anything so lucrative as the dowager empress’ search for her lost grandson, though. It’s not the first they’ve heard of her looking for him over the years, but this is the largest the reward has ever been.

If they could just pull it off, find the right man to play the role so convincingly that she would be fooled, the con wouldn’t just put food on their table. It would be enough for the two of them to get out of Russia, to start over entirely. It’s enough for them to finally escape their circumstances.

So Hank and Ben run auditions. They just need someone who looks the part, the dark hair and the freckles and the big doe eyes. They can train him in every other way necessary. They’ll split the sum three ways, and they’ll be rich, out of this cycle, out of this country, free of everything.

Hank tells himself it will help, that he’ll finally be okay if he can just find the right man to play the prince.

He never expects their Connor Arkait to come to him.

But Hank looks across the ballroom of the ransacked palace where he and Ben have been living, looks into the eyes of the man who’s broken in, and he thinks he’s found him, his ticket out of all of this.

The kid doesn’t remember his family, only that he was lost and raised in an orphanage. He’s trying to get to Paris - he had some Parisian coin on him when he was found wandering around Saint Petersburg, thinks it’s some kind of clue about where his family might be.

His name is even Connor, which would seem profoundly coincidental if names didn’t grow exponentially in popularity once they were given to a member of the royal family.

Hank doesn’t think anything of it, except that this is a fucking godsend.

Connor is earnest, genuine... probably not overly inclined to lie to a woman trying to find her lost grandson, but that’s just a small setback. Everything about him is so perfect that it isn’t hard for Hank to act genuine, too, like he’s just trying to help the dowager empress, to do something good.

And Connor is desperate to get to Paris...desperate, like Hank is, to get out. It’s a grief Hank knows too well, to live where he has nothing, so he knows exactly how to play it.

He shows Connor the portrait of the young prince hanging in the palace- and it is uncanny, the resemblance, even if everyone agrees the duchess is in denial and the prince died in the siege eighteen years ago. He tells Connor that if he doesn’t know who he is, he could be anybody.

Hank says it like he means Connor could be the prince. But he really just means Connor could be his escape.

Connor does agree to come with them to see the empress in the end. Hank knew he would. He tries to feel pleased, but mostly he’s just haunted by the glimpse of hope he sees in Connor’s eye when the kid says, “The empress will know if I’m not the prince, so it’s worth a shot, at least.”

Hank knows how much losing everything hurts. He doesn’t like that he played it to his advantage with some kid who doesn’t even know where home is.

Some of that guilt wears off by the next day when they’re boarding the train and Hank discovers that Connor has a bit of an attitude on him. Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised - when the world beats you down, you can either lie there and take it or you learn how to throw fists back.

Still, Hank is just trying to review the Arkait family tree with him - Connor might not know it yet, but he’ll will have to prove who he is first to even meet the duchess - and Connor is sitting there slumped in his seat, not even trying to cover his yawn of boredom.

“You know you’re not above this,” Hank tells him. “Look, maybe you’ll remember something if you would just pay attention.”

Connor takes another look at the family tree Hank is showing him. There’s a hint of interest on his face, maybe something like hope, but it fades away quickly enough.

“I don’t,” he says. “I only remember odd things. They’re mostly mundane, or they seem that way.”

And Hank really shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t get close, because this con will fall apart if he isn’t able to play Connor just the same as the empress...but he still sets the family tree aside and says, “Okay. Like what?”

Losing everything is shit, Hank knows. Losing it without knowing what it was in the first place...that has to be worse.

Hank suspects most people probably find Connor difficult to read. He doesn’t, though. He can see the weight of his burden etched plainly on his face.

Connor scrubs his fingers over his face, leans forward and digs the heels of his hands into those big brown eyes. And maybe Hank is going soft, because he’s just thinking of putting a hand on Connor’s shoulder and telling him it’s okay, that they don’t have to do this now, when Connor says, “There was a rose garden. Or maybe just a bush. I remember the roses, and picking them for someone.”

There _was_ a rose garden at the palace, one Hank used to help the gardeners tend from time to time when he worked there. But there are rose gardens everywhere.

“They were someone’s favorite,” Connor continues. “Someone who was important to me. My mother, maybe? I don’t know. But every time I see someone selling roses it takes me back, and I feel like I’m getting close to something, even if I never quite get there.”

“What else?” Hank asks. He isn’t thinking about it now, but he’ll realize later that he asked the question out of genuine curiosity, even if he’s never curious about anyone these days.

Connor is right, they are mostly mundane memories. He remembers lemon cakes, and looking at the blades of grass under his hands on a sunny day by the lake. He remembers the hot flush of embarrassment after a brother teased him, although he can’t say what about, and staying up past his bedtime, hidden under the blanket with a book.

None of it is helpful in painting any kind of identity, and none of it is much, but Hank thinks about how it’s all Connor has, and for the first time in a long time, he feels a pang of sadness for someone other than himself.

“I feel like there was something after me,” Connor says, surprising Hank. “Something I don’t remember.”

Hank feels his brows pinch together. “Like a person?”

Connor shakes his head. “No, it’s...it’s more than that. Like a curse. Someone said we were cursed.”

“Your family?” Hank asks, and Connor nods. And hell, he does look afraid, curled in on himself like he’s trying to protect himself from something he can’t even identify. “Who?” Hank asks gently. “Who said you were cursed?”

Connor is quiet for a moment, and Hank wonders how many times he’s thought about this, how many times he’s tried to unwind whatever invisible thing is haunting him and give it a shape so he won’t need to fear it anymore.

“I don’t know,” Connor says finally. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Yeah,” Hank is starting to say. “Sure.”

But it doesn’t matter. Ben comes back to their car then, barely closes the door before he says, “We have a problem.”

Well, of course they do. The travel visas are forged, Hank’s luck has always been shit, and it doesn’t seem that Connor’s is much better. So of course the ink they used on the documents is the wrong color, and of course they need to stow away in baggage. Hank isn’t even surprised.

“I thought you didn’t make mistakes,” Connor says once they’re hidden away in the luggage car.

“Listen,” Hank says. “Next time you can forge the travel documents, and I’ll make the snide comments.”

It’s a stronger reply than he intends, but it’s out of his mouth before he can stop it. Maybe that’s just because he’s made nothing but mistakes, and so Connor’s quip hits somewhere deeper than he likely meant it to.

They aren’t found, at least. That nobody searches baggage is probably the first bit of good fortune Hank has seen in a long while, even if the car is cold and they can’t go to dining.

Hank half expects Connor to complain about being hungry, because even Hank feels like complaining, but he doesn’t. He just curls up against the wall of the car with his ratty coat tucked around his shoulders, tracing patterns in the grain of the wood while Hank and Ben talk about how they get off the train in the morning without being caught.

Later that night, Hank finds himself wondering exactly how acquainted Connor is with his own hunger while Ben snores loudly in the corner. Connor’s eyes are closed too, but Hank doesn’t think he’s asleep.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Connor.”

The baggage car is dark, but Hank still sees Connor open his eyes and shift under his coat. Hank shifts closer to him so they’re sitting beside each other. “Here,” he says, passing him the last of the wrapped pastry he bought from a street vendor that morning.

“I’m okay,” Connor says.

Hank fixes him with a look. “Princes don’t have sunken in cheeks. Just eat.”

Connor sits up and takes it, and Hank’s own stomach growls. “Why are you trying to help the empress?” Connor asks around the mouthful of pastry.

“The goodness of my heart isn’t enough?”

Connor shakes his head. “Even if it was, there’s still another reason, I suspect.”

Hank sighs, rubbing at his temples. He could tell Connor about the siege, about how he was there. How he sent the empress and the prince through the servants’ quarters, how he put himself between them and the soldiers...how he tried, and still days later people were saying that the prince was lost.

He could say that he’s trying to make things right, except that all he learned from that day is that bad shit happens anyway, even when people try to be good, and that maybe he took that realization to heart a little too hard, maybe he carries it with him in a way he shouldn’t, the memory of being knocked out cold in a burning palace that night, almost dying, all to save a boy who still ended up gone.

But Hank doesn’t feel like explaining any of that. He worries it will make him sound too noble, too much like some kind of hero, and he isn’t that at all.

So it’s a less compelling reason, but instead he leans his head back against the wall and says, “I lost my kid, too. I guess I’d just like to keep someone else from that, if I can.”

It’s not true at all. The only true reason is that Hank knows there’s no future for him in Russia, no reason to stay or to try.

The only truth that matters is that he has to get out, and he needs the money to do it.

Connor looks at him in the dark. “You’re a good man.”

Hank’s not. He’s really not. But there’s still a little part of him that wants to be, maybe.

Maybe that’s why this hurts so much.

Connor finishes eating, dusting the pastry crumbs from his coat. "I'm sorry," he says. "About your child."

"Cole," Hank offers. "He was six. He got sick, and it got worse...turned into pneumonia, and it just...never got better, I guess. Some kids survive it, but Cole was always so gentle. I loved that about him - he was so different from me, and I thought that was a good thing. But he never had much fight in him."

Connor nods, tracing a finger around one of the buttons on his jacket. "And now you're here," he says, as if it's that simple. Maybe it isn't difficult for Connor to imagine the way someone spirals after losing something so vital, the way losing one thing so easily turns into losing everything.

Hank wants to tell Connor that maybe he is cursed, but maybe he also isn't the only one.

"Yeah," he says instead, leaning his head back against the wall. "Now I'm here."

Connor nods. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, then closes it again. He never does say it, whatever it was.

Hank stares ahead into the darkness of the baggage car, and he listens to Ben snoring across the way. He wishes sleep came easier to him, but it's a difficult thing to close his hand around even in a far more comfortable setting than this. Connor's head lolls onto his shoulder at some point through the night, and Hank thinks about nudging him off, about getting up and going back across the car where Connor can't reach him.

He doesn't, in the end. He tells himself it's just easier not to wake him.

In the morning, they're off the train the moment it pulls into the station, slipping out of the baggage car and dodging into a crowded street when someone calls after them. It's not worth the pursuit, and so they're able to slip away.

There was a time when it felt good, getting away with something like this, outsmarting someone, being one step ahead of the system. Hank doesn't feel much of that thrill anymore. He mostly just feels tired, even if he looks to his side and sees a small smile on Connor's face, a brightness alight in his eyes that's just the smallest bit infectious.

Hank remembers when he first started doing things like this, how he thought it meant he had control of himself and his life after being powerless so long. He imagines Connor feels like that now.

So Hank doesn't tell him that it will wear off in time, that it's always just an illusion in the end. Hank doesn't have any more power over his own life now than he did the day his son died in his arms, and neither does Connor.

But Hank doesn't say it.

He doesn't want to take it from him.

"We need to get him cleaned up," Ben says to Hank as they walk. "Find a cheap suit for him, if we can. And he has to learn the family trees; you know they'll ask..."

"I know," Hank says under his breath, although he also knows Connor isn't going to like it when he realizes they're asking him to lie and pretend he's certain of who he is. "I'll talk to him."

"I'll look into getting a boat to France if you want to take him."

"Yeah," Hank says, even if he hasn't bought a suit for himself or anyone else in ten years, even if he finds Connor a hint disarming. "Sure."

"Come on," Hank says to Connor once Ben disappears into the crowds. "You're going to have to look the part."

Connor hesitates, clenches his jaw a bit like he does when he's thinking about something even he does quietly fall into step at Hank's side.

"What's wrong?" Hank asks after a few blocks, when Connor still hasn't said anything.

"I don't know," Connor says. "I guess I hoped they would recognize me, without me looking like something I'm not. If they're my family, I mean. I just hoped they would know me."

Hank wonders if Connor has ever felt known by anyone, but how could he when he doesn't remember, when he doesn't even fully know himself?

"They will," Hank says, laying what he hopes is a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It just doesn't hurt to look nice, you know?"

Connor considers that a moment and then gives Hank a dim smile. "Okay," he says softly.

Hank doesn't like playing him, he's deciding. He wishes there was another way.

He gets Connor to talk some more about his past while they scour a few secondhand shops for a suit that fits Connor well enough that it can pass for new. For as miserable as he is at talking about himself, Hank has always been good at getting other people to talk about their own shit, even before he and Ben ended up down on their luck at the same time and started running petty cons to stay afloat.

By the time they reach the third shop, Connor has told Hank about the orphanage he was raised in, about the factory work the children had to do to earn their keep, how he spent twelve years of his life gutting fish in an assembly line, how he never took a day off even when he was so sick that he could hardly stand upright and threw up four times in the men's bathroom.

"That's awful," Hank says. He means it, even as he tries not to think about how he's using Connor, too.

Connor shifts through a few jackets hanging on one of the racks, occasionally reaching out to feel the fabric. "It wasn’t how they wanted things to be. The people who ran the orphan's home tried to be kind to us, but they just couldn't afford so many children without us contributing."

Connor tries a few things on, and most of them aren't quite long enough for his limbs, but even still, Hank realizes all too quickly that Connor isn't hard on the eyes. He knew that to some extent, knew at least that he had a pretty face, but the oversized, ill-fitting clothes allowed Hank to ignore what might be underneath. He discovers now that Connor has slim hips and shoulders that he draws back with a confidence Hank wouldn't expect, that the freckles on his cheeks are on his wrists, over his neck and his collarbone now that his turtleneck sweater has been discarded.

It’s distracting, and Hank can’t afford to be distracted.

They do find something eventually, a dark grey suit that Ben will only need to take in a little. Connor looks so good in it that Hank is starting to buy his own con.  
"Feel good?" Hank manages to ask around his dry mouth, meeting Connor's eyes in the mirror when he nods.

Hank pays while Connor changes back into his own clothes. He swallows hard a few times, trying to get rid of that tightness in his throat. As they leave the store, Connor says, "Thank you. I've never had something nice before."

Hank wants to tell him it isn't anything, that it's all just part of the game and not something Hank has done for him at all, except that he wishes it was, that he was really giving Connor something. He wants to, he's realizing.

"Yeah," he manages to say. "Don't mention it."

They go to the barber next, because Hank might find Connor's mop of wild curls endearing, but they need to do something to get them in order. By the time they're done there, Connor easily passes for royalty, even with the ratty clothes. Hank has no trouble imagining a crown on Connor's head, the empress convinced her beloved grandson has been returned to her, the rubles in his pocket.

He'll be out, this time for good, and Connor will have a family, finally, even if it isn't truly his. It will be a good thing for both of them, Hank tries to tell himself, not for the first time and certainly not the last.

But every time he does, it sits heavier in his gut.

"Well?" Connor asks as they leave the barber, and Hank realizes he's fishing for a compliment when he catches the glint in Connor's eye.

Just when he was forgetting he had a bratty side, too.

"You clean up alright," he says, clapping Connor on the shoulder. "Let's go find Ben."

They walk together through the city streets, and Hank tries to tell himself he has the resolve to see this through.

* * *

They aren't even on the ship for a full day before Connor realizes they want him to lie.

It happens over their first meal. Ben gets up to see if there's hot water for tea, and Connor asks if he can bring him some if he finds any.

Ben catches Hank's glance at that, and Connor watches them exchange a look before he says, "What?"

"The prince didn't like tea," Hank explains.

"Oh," Connor says, brow pinched together as he tries to figure out why that's significant. "Tastes change, don't they?"

"Sure," Hank says, trying to choose his next words carefully. The empress' cousin, Rose, has been interviewing the men claiming to be the prince before they ever get to meet with Amanda, and Hank and Ben have both heard that she asks about the prince's preferences, foods and drinks he likes and dislikes.

"But?" Connor asks when Hank doesn't finish his thought right away.

"But," Ben says, "the empress' cousin might ask if you like tea, and since the prince never did, you'll need to say you don't either if we want to get you in front of the empress."

Connor looks between the two of them. "You never said I had to prove I was the prince."

"Connor, look..." Hank starts, but Connor rises before he can finish, leaving the food on his plate half-eaten as he retreats from the room.

"Sorry," Ben says to Hank.

He means it, Hank knows - Ben doesn't like this any more than he does, but neither of them has any choice but to play the shitty hand they've been dealt.

"It's okay," Hank says. "He had to know at some point. I'll go talk to him."

Hank checks their rooms just to find Connor's empty, so he makes his way up on deck. Connor is at the bow of the ship, gripping the railing tightly enough that Hank can see his white knuckles when he quietly settles in at his side.

"At what point," Connor says quietly, "were you going to tell me about any of this? I presume you've known from the start, probably long before you found me."

"Yeah," Hank agrees. The cold winds whip around them, carrying his words away. "Look," he continues, "this is just part of it, Con. She's the empress - it's not like just anyone can meet with her. We just have to convince Rose first."

Hank watches Connor inhale once, and then again, jaw tense as he tries to collect himself. Hank is about to reach for him, even if he doesn't know how it can help, when Connor says, "And how am I supposed to convince someone I'm the prince when I don't even know who I am?"

"That's what you have us for," Hank offers.

"I'll...what? Memorize facts about the prince and then regurgitate them, even if they aren't true about me? Lie about stupid things like tea? I just..." He cuts himself off, pushing a hand through the curls hanging over his forehead in frustration.

"Just what?" Hank asks gently.

Connor looks down at his hands, shaking his head. "I just thought someone might know more about me than I do. I thought I could tell the truth about myself and finally have someone fill in all the pieces I don't know...if I'm even part of their family at all."

"And you will, when we meet the duchess," Hank says. He hesitates, but then he lays a hand over Connor's, ignoring the way Connor looks up in surprise. "This is just something we have to get through first. I'll help you get through to the duchess, and once you're there, you can tell her the truth about yourself. We just have to do this first, okay?"

Connor sighs, looking back at Hank's hand on top of his for a moment before he nods.

"Okay," Hank breathes, grasping him by the shoulder. "It's going to be okay."

And of course he doesn't know that, but if everything goes according to plan, he and Ben will be long gone with the reward money before he does.

In another world and another life, maybe one where Connor was more broken down or resigned to the way things are, Hank decides that he could have worked with him and Ben. He's sharp, good at reading people...pretty in a way that Hank and Ben aren't, and more than capable of using those wide brown eyes to manipulate. Hank has seen a bit of it already, but he becomes entirely convinced of it when not more than ten minutes into their attempt to teach him how to be the prince, he says, "How do you know all of this?"

"It's our business to know," Ben says. "Where was the prince born, Connor?"

Connor answers, but when Hank looks up, he's looking at him, watching him with a tilt to his head, like he's trying to figure something out. He keeps looking at Hank that way until they take a break a few hours later, as the sun is setting over them. Hank and Connor sit on the deck, waiting for Ben to collect Connor's dress shoes from his room.

"I don't imagine many people know or care what foods a boy lost eighteen years ago liked or how he took his tea," Connor says. It's not an accusation necessarily, but there is something firm in his tone, like he wants Hank to know he's certain there's more to the story.

And, as usual, he isn't wrong.

"They've been looking for the prince long enough that most people know how they're trying to find him," Hank says.

Connor considers him. "Sure," he concedes, "but that's only how you know what questions they're going to ask, and not how you know the answers."

Hank thinks about telling him everything and asking Connor to work with them instead. He thinks about trying to convince him to run this con against the empress and then slip away from her and come back to him and Ben once they have the money. He thinks that Connor could be worth more to them than just the rubles offered as a reward.

The only thing that stops him is knowing Connor would never agree. Even if he knew the kind of work Hank and Ben have kept themselves afloat with the last few years, even if he was willing to take part in it himself, Hank knows he wouldn't knowingly deceive someone looking for her family. It's too close to his own story, too personal, even if he doesn't know the empress at all.

So he bites his tongue, and instead, he says, "I used to work in the palace, serving the Arkaits."

"Oh," Connor cocks his head, looking him over like he's trying to understand. "Why didn't you tell me?"

 _Because I'm afraid of you_ , Hank could say. _Because I don't think I can run this con from so close to you._

Instead, he just says, "It was a long time ago, Connor."

He's saved having to say anything more by Ben's return, although he still catches Connor stealing a glance at him here and there even as he bends to tie his dress shoes.

Connor has to learn how to dance. The prince would have learned when he was five years old. He might not need to be perfect, but he does need to be proficient, in case the occasion would arise.

Ben is a good teacher, but Connor is also a quick learner. Hank isn't surprised to find that he's good at this, with a sort of natural talent. His movements are fluid and graceful, and he holds himself proudly even if he's barely had anything of his own all these years. Hank shouldn't like watching him so much, but there's something quietly captivating about all of this.

"Good" Ben says, standing back and nodding. "Hank, can you stand in a moment? Need to give the knee a rest."

Hank should not stand in. He already feels like he's too close to this. But Ben is looking at him expectantly and so is Connor, so short of complaining about a bad hip and making himself look pitifully old in the process, there isn't much he can do to avoid it.

So that's how Hank ends up with Connor leading him around the deck of the ship, watching him with a small smile on his face.

"You're good at this," Hank offers to fill the silence, because he is, and it's a neutral enough compliment, one that does nothing to betray how much he likes the way Connor fits into his arms.

"So are you," Connor says, and Hank wonders how anyone's eyes are possibly so bright.

He thinks about telling him the truth. He thinks about kissing him. He thinks that there's buying his own con, and then there's being so fucking enthralled with it that he can't see beyond it, and that the first is bad enough but this is even worse.

Hank steps away the moment Ben stops humming whatever waltz they're supposed to be dancing to. He needs the distance.

He tells himself that's all he needs.

"He's good," Ben says later that night, when he and Hank are in their room and Connor is across the hall in his. "Still can't quite believe he found us."

"Yeah," Hank says, although he doesn't want to talk about this. "Guess our luck finally turned around."

Ben looks at him like he's privy to every last one of the thoughts running through Hank's head - and, to be fair, they've been together long enough that he may very well be - but he's too kind to say anything. "Night, Hank," he says instead.

"Night." Hank turns over, tries to get comfortable. He doesn't know why he bothers - sleep never comes easy. He wishes it would, especially tonight. He doesn't want to think about Connor's pretty face or the freckles that disappear under his shirt. He doesn't want to think about how quick and clever Connor is.

He certainly doesn't want to think about all the lies he's told him, or the ones he'll tell tomorrow.

But sleep doesn't come, so he lies there listening to the rain pouring down on the deck above, until he hears Connor's door open and close across the hall.

Hank waits for a little while. It’s storming out, and the dingy little dining room is closed for the night, so there’s absolutely nowhere for Connor to be going. He figures he’s probably just going to the bathroom -their rooms were cheap and there’s only one at the end of the hall.

But a minute passes, and then a second and a third, and Hank doesn’t hear Connor’s door again.

He can’t explain the odd sort of dread falling like a weight in his stomach, but Hank gets up anyway, quietly opening the door and peering out into the hallway.

The door to the bathroom stands wide open, and Connor is nowhere to be seen.

“Shit,” Hank whispers to himself. He doesn’t know what it is, but something is wrong. He quickly pulls his coat on and hurries up the stairs to the deck.

The rain is pouring in torrents over the floorboards, and it’s so dark. Hank has to wipe his eyes to see, his hair whipping around his face. When he finally catches sight of him, Connor is at the bow of the ship, climbing onto the railing, and Hank’s heart thuds hard in his chest.

“Connor!” he yells, but the thunder swallows his voice entirely.

Connor doesn’t turn - he’s only holding onto one of the riggings, and the wood is so slippery that Hank doesn’t know how he hasn’t fallen yet.

Hank tears across the deck to reach him. The ship crests over a wave, knocking him off balance and into the side of the ship. Hank’s shoulder screams in protest when he crashes into the wood, but he forces himself up, makes his way across the deck by will alone.

Connor loses his footing just as Hank reaches him, catching an arm tight around his waist and pulling him back from the ledge. Connor fights him as he does, fitfully twisting and trying to pull himself free, and that’s when Hank realizes that he isn’t even awake.

“Connor,” Hank says, getting his hands on Connor’s cheeks and holding him. “Connor! Wake up; you’re okay.”

When Connor opens his eyes, Hank watches the confusion spread over his face first, and then the relief, and finally the fear.

“Hey,” Hank says, trying to sound comforting. “It’s okay. It was just a nightmare.”

Hank doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but it isn’t for Connor to sink into him, to bury his face in Hank’s shoulder and wrap his arms around Hank’s waist, clinging to him.

It takes him a moment to recover, but Hank lifts a hand to run his fingers through Connor’s dark curls. They’re both soaked through, shivering and shaking against one another.

“Connor,” he says gently. “Come on, honey. Let’s go back inside.”

“It’s happening again,” Connor whispers against him, so softly Hank almost misses the words entirely.

Hank puts his hands on Connor’s shoulders, forces him back far enough that he can look him in the eye. “What is?”

“The curse,” Connor says, voice shaking around the words.

“There’s no curse. It was just a nightmare.”

Connor shakes his head, frantic. “You don’t know. There’s something after me...it wants me dead, it keeps trying...”

Hank doesn’t know what to make of any of that. Connor is still confused, maybe, except that his eyes are clear and the fear there is so real. “You’re okay,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to do. “You’re safe, I promise. Let’s just go back inside.” Hank wraps an arm around Connor’s shoulders to help him across the slippery deck, and Connor sags into him.

“You don’t know,” Hank thinks he hears Connor say one more time, but if he did speak, the wind carried the words away.

He helps Connor back to his room, pulls fresh, dry clothes from his luggage and lays them out for him while Connor sits on his bed.

“You’re okay,” Hank tells him when he hands the clothes over. It’s the only thing he knows how to say. “It’s okay. Yell if you need anything, alright? We’re just across the hall, and I can’t sleep for shit anyway.”

Hank turns to go, but Connor catches him by the wrist before he can.

“Can you stay?” he asks in a voice so small that Hank doesn’t know how to do anything other than what he asks. He should argue for his own sake, because he’s already too close, but he just can’t.

"Okay," he says instead, and fuck it all, he reaches out to brush those dark curls out of Connor's eyes when he does. "I do need to change, though. And so do you."

Connor nods weakly. His eyes are unfocused even if there's relief on his face, and he still looks so small and so afraid that Hank doesn't honestly know how he could have left him alone, even if Connor hadn't asked.

So he goes back across the hall and quietly roots through his things for a change of clothes. Ben is snoring loudly from the top bunk, which is a relief, at least. Hank doesn't know how he would even begin to explain this if he had to.

He manages to change quickly enough despite the rocking of the ship in the storm, and he grabs a clean towel for Connor's hair before he goes back across the hall. He knocks before he goes in, and Connor answers the door wearing the clothes Hank laid out for him. "Here," Hank says, handing the towel over to him.

"Thank you." Connor retreats to his bed, tucking himself under the thin covers and running the towel over his curls. Hank is moving to seat himself on the cool floor, to make himself as comfortable as he can, when Connor says, "You don't have to do that."

And Hank is about to ask him what he means until Connor shifts to the far side of his mattress, leaving an empty space for him.

Hank doesn't need to lie so close to Connor that he can count the freckles scattered over the bridge of his nose and across his cheeks. But the floor is cold and the little smile Connor forces onto his face is so warm, so what Hank _needs_ to do is a distant thought in the back of his mind.

The cheap mattress sags underneath Hank's weight when he tucks himself in at Connor's side, and Connor shifts again to give him more room. They adjust themselves so they aren't quite touching, even if Hank's arm is draped over top of Connor's head where it rests on his pillow, even if he would only need to move an inch or two to brush his fingers over the curls at the nape of Connor's neck.

Any distance between them at this point is probably just illusion, or unnecessary formality. They can't be this close together and pretend that they're still so far apart, but they try anyway.

Or Hank tries. Connor turns over so Hank is looking into his eyes, their noses practically touching in the small space.

"Thank you," he whispers, and Hank doesn't know if Connor is thanking him for staying or for his life or anything else in between.

"What happened tonight," Hank says, moving past it, because Connor doesn't need to thank him for anything. "That's happened to you before? The sleep-walking?"

"Yes. But it's not just that. It's happened less as I get older, but..." He stops, shaking his head. "I know this sounds mad. They wanted to admit me to an asylum at the orphanage...the only reason they didn't is because they couldn't afford it. They thought I was trying to hurt myself, and they never believed me when I said it was something else."

Hank shakes his head, his fingers brushing over Connors where they rest between them. "I don't think you're mad, Connor"

Connor worries his lower lip between his teeth. "I don't know," he whispers. "There’s something wrong with me, or something after me…I don't know which it is."

“Hey,” Hank says, putting a hand on Connor’s cheek and thumbing away the tears welling under his eyes, because he doesn’t know how not to touch him in this moment, even if he knows he _shouldn’t_. “Look at me, Con. What does that mean?”

So Connor tells him.

He tells him about waking up with a kitchen knife in his hands just two days after moving into the orphanage. He tells him about waking up with his head inside the oven when he was thirteen. He tells him about the fire at the factory when he was fifteen, and the storage closet door that mysteriously locked him inside until he was hacking on the smoke, choking on it as it burned his lungs. He climbed the shelves and got out the small window at the height of the room, but only after he had inhaled so much of it that his respiratory systems were shutting down. (And Hank can’t help but remember Cole like that, too, frail in the children’s ward, gasping for air and still unable to breathe.)

Connor tells him about all the other little things, the smaller accidents, the ones that seem to follow him wherever he goes. He tells him that his earliest memory is on a frozen pond, the ice giving way underneath him, someone holding his hand and pulling him back while something else tried to pull him in.

And Hank has to admit that Connor either has the shittiest luck of anyone Hank has ever known, shittier even than his own, or this curse, or whatever it is, may be real. He would think Connor was lying, but he just saw it for himself, Connor trying to pitch himself overboard and the fear in his eyes when he opened them.

“I always see my family,” Connor whispers. “I can never make out the details - I don’t know their faces - but I’m always trying to get to them in my dreams, or protect them from something. I think it took them, too...whatever is after me.”

“Why would anything want you dead?” Hank asks, tucking a loose curl away from Connor’s face.

“I don’t know,” he whispers, voice breaking. “I honestly don’t know.”

Hank watches the tears well in his eyes, so he wraps an arm around Connor’s shoulders, pulling him into him. Connor folds, going easily, and he cries into Hank’s chest, weak, exhausted sobs echoing through the quiet cabin while Hank strokes a hand over his hair.

“It’s okay,” Hank whispers into his dark curls. “You’re okay.”

Connor shudders against him, and then he says, “There was a door in the wall, where I lived. I remember being afraid, and someone opening it and sending me through, and thinking I would be safe if I could just make it to the other side. I used to look for hidden doors all the time in the orphanage, because I thought if I could just get through, whatever was after me wouldn’t be able to follow.” He shakes his head against Hank’s shoulder, raising a hand to wipe his eyes. “That sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

And it would. It really would. Except the door in the palace kitchens, the one to the servants’ corridors, the one Hank sent the empress and the prince through, was painted to blend perfectly into the wall.

Hank's mind catches on the realization, the understanding, choking on the recognition that this is a con, but maybe it's equally real.

Hank knows he needs to tell Connor. He has to. But it's so much to tell, and Connor is worn out, at least for tonight. His shoulders still shake occasionally beneath Hank's arms, from a stray sob or his fear or from the cold, Hank doesn't know. He smooths a hand over the back of Connor's head, gently threading his fingers through his hair, and he keeps on even after Connor's breathing has evened out. His cheek is still pressed to Hank's chest, which Hank doesn't mind at all, but it will have his neck aching in protest come morning.

So he waits a while, until he's certain Connor is deep in his sleep - Connor snores, he learns, just the lightest, softest sounds that Hank finds impossibly endearing - and then Hank carefully eases him onto his back. For now, at least, Connor looks at ease, the hard lines of fear and worry smoothed from his face. 

That doesn't stop Hank from staying up through the night, watching him. He tells himself he wouldn't sleep anyway, but his eyelids are heavy. It takes effort to keep them open, but he still does. He lies there, and he imagines Connor dressed in clothes Hank would never be able to afford, a crown on his head. He thinks of Connor's picture being distributed all throughout Europe and beyond it, the lost prince found.

He thinks about the first rule of serving in the palace, to not associate with the royal family, to remember always that the Arkaits were set apart, elevated somewhere beyond reach. It's less true now, perhaps, given that the Arkaits are no rulers at all after the revolution. But there are still always dividing lines between the rich and the poor, and that says nothing at all for the way Hank has deceived Connor. There's so much between them, and Hank thinks of all of it as he lies there with Connor's hand in his. He traces a thumb over each of Connor's knuckles, peaks and valleys, and he tries not to think that it's probably the closest he'll ever get.

And Hank tries to be grateful. He does. After all Connor has suffered, he deserves to have a home and a family. He tries to think about how this couldn't possibly have worked out any better. There's no con, no need to exhaust himself by lying...Connor will have a family, and Hank will have made his first honest money in over a decade, and he'll be out.

He'll be out, except suddenly, he just wants to stay.

And this is always Hank's problem, isn't it? He always wants to be somewhere other than where he is, always loves the wrong people at the wrong times. It's the timing, always his fucking timing, that's off.

Part of him, something ugly and selfish, wishes he'd had to foresight to recruit Connor as another member of their team instead of dolling him up like the prince. Part of him wishes he and Ben had seen someone bright and clever, and they had cut their losses, knowing Connor would be worth more to them in the long run as a partner. Part of him wants so badly to have done this in any other way, so long as it wouldn't have ended with Connor becoming the lost Arkait prince.

But most of him doesn't wish that, not really. He cares about Connor too much to want to keep him from his family, even if there's a part of Hank that wonders if they could have become a family of their own. There's something about Connor that makes him want so badly to be good, something that makes him remember the man who put himself between the insurgents and the fleeing prince in the first place, all those years ago.

Hank thinks about that, about all of it, until first light breaks through the small window across the room.

Connor is a light sleeper, maybe, because it isn't long afterwards that he stirs, turning his head and stretching against the length of Hank's body in his sleep. Hank thinks about getting up. He wouldn't leave entirely, wouldn't ask Connor to wake up alone after last night, but he wonders if it would be better for both of them, in the long run, if he just backed away now.

But before he can shift himself out from under the covers, Connor blinks awake.

There's a warmth in his eyes when he looks at Hank, a sleepy smile spreading over his face that twists Hank's heart in a way he never wanted to feel again, if only because it means he has something to lose.

Connor is braver than Hank is. He's lost everything, too, but that still doesn't stop him from rolling onto his side and tucking himself against the barrel of Hank's chest, his forehead warm against Hank's neck. "Morning," he mumbles, the word swallowed by a yawn.

And Hank doesn't know how one person can be so beautiful, or how Connor's frame can be so slight against him and yet feel like holding so much, but against his better judgement, he wraps his arms around him and kisses his hair anyway.

He lets himself get pulled under, even if it only means that in the end, he'll drown.

Hank lets himself hold Connor like that, too, stroking a hand over his hair and down his back while Connor drifts somewhere between sleep and wakefulness in the early morning hours. He lets it go undisturbed for as long as he can, but Ben will be up soon, looking for Hank.

Hank thinks it’s probably best that he isn’t found in Connor’s bed.

“Hey, Connor,” he says, squeezing Connor’s shoulder and trying not to be completely distracted by the sweet, sleepy, “Hmm?” Connor lets out in response. He especially tries not to think about how badly he wants to kiss him while he forces himself to say, “I need to tell you something, honey.”

Connor pulls away only as far as he must to meet Hank’s eyes, tucking his cheek against his pillow. “Okay.”

Hank tries to gather his wits, but then he decides there’s no good, easy way to tell someone he’s the prince after all. “Listen,” he says. “What you said last night, about the door in the wall...”

Connor’s brow pinches tighter, his face falling a bit. Hank wonders how many times someone has said he was mad, and if he thinks that’s what’s going to happen here.

He reaches between them, taking Connor’s hand and winding their fingers together. “There was a door like that, in the kitchens at the palace,” Hank tells him. “I opened it, for the empress and the prince...that’s how they got out during the siege.”

There’s a hard line across Connor’s face where his brow is furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“It was real,” Hank says, “and if you remember it, then you’re...”

Hank never finishes the thought. He’s interrupted by a sob that tears its way out of Connor’s throat, something broken and relieved all at once. He clasps a hand to his mouth, shoulders shaking and tears brimming in his eyes, and Hank pulls him back in, holding him tight.

* * *

In a few hours, their ship docks, and they take a car to Paris. Connor is dressed in his suit, and Hank would think he looks every bit the prince if only he would stop fidgeting with his hands in his lap. Hank takes him by the wrist at one point, leans in and whispers, “It’s okay.”

“He’s nervous,” Ben says to Hank when they reach Rose’s house. There’s another would-be prince being interviewed inside, so they wait in the yard, watching Connor pace across the way.

“He doesn’t have to be,” Hank says. He’ll tell Ben later, after this is over, after Rose sees Connor and listens to him speak and recognizes who he is, after he has his family back.

Once they get inside, Connor is brilliant. Of course he is. He answers every question with ease, a blend of his own story and Hank and Ben’s coaching where his memory failed him.

Rose asks how he escaped the palace, and though Connor hasn’t looked away from her the entire time, he glances at Hank as he tells the story about the door in the wall.

“Well?” Ben asks when they’re done, and Rose hesitates.

“He’s the best I’ve seen,” she says, “but Amanda has had enough. She just told me this afternoon that she's too tired to continue this. It’s never him in the end.”

Connor is composed, but Hank can see the fear playing over his face, fear that he would come all this way and be so close yet still fall short.

“It’s him this time,” Hank says, stepping forward and putting a hand on Connor’s shoulder. “You know it is.”

Rose has a soft heart, a kindness to her. She agrees to help them in the end, and that’s how they end up at the Russian ballet later that evening.

Rose takes Connor with her that afternoon, looking for something appropriate for him to wear, after she puts Hank and Ben up in a hotel. That’s how Hank knows she’s hopeful, if not entirely convinced, that Connor is who he says. The Arkaits may have money, but nobody shells out luxuries like this to strangers unless they’re sure those strangers should matter to them.

There’s a vendor outside the hotel selling flowers. Hank remembers what Connor says about the rose garden and goes down to buy one while they wait.

“You’re very calm about all of this,” Ben says at some point.

Hank shrugs, looking at the rose on the bedside table. “He’s the prince.”

“Yes, of course he is, but...”

“No,” Hank says. “I mean he really is, con aside. The door he remembers...it was there, in the kitchen.”

Ben has never liked the ways they survive – he’s too kind for it. The relief on his face, the joy that Connor is so close to his family, is almost enough to chase away some of the sadness that plagues Hank at the thought.

At least it’s bittersweet, he tries to tell himself. It’s another loss, but at least it isn’t like all the others he’s known. That’s something.

Connor returns shortly before they’re supposed to leave for the ballet, disappearing into his room to get changed. Hank goes across to his room after a while, knocking on the door.

“Hey,” Hank says when Connor lets him in. He’s dressed in the suit Rose bought for him, far nicer than the one from the secondhand shop, a tie hanging loose around his neck. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Connor says. “I’m not...none of this is...”

“Honey,” Hank says, grasping his hand to stop him from pacing. “Yes, you are. And the empress will know it. She’s going to recognize you, and this is going to be over.”

Connor gives him a weak smile and gestures at the tie. “I have no idea how to tie this.”Hank huffs a laugh at that, putting his hands on Connor’s shoulders and pulling him around to face him. “Here,” he says, tying it for him and trying to ignore the way Connor keeps looking at him like he’s so grateful, or like Hank has given him the world. He doesn’t deserve that.

He might be desperately trying to do the right thing for Connor here, but it’s still just a good deed he lucked into.

Hank takes the rose he bought and tucks the short stem into Connor’s pocket. “There,” he says softly, brushing a curl away from Connor’s eyes. “Perfect.”

He’s not expecting Connor to kiss him, but of course, Connor is braver than him, unafraid of loss in the way Hank is, or maybe just unable to see just yet that their worlds are so far apart. But it happens fast, Connor’s hands warm on his face and his fingers in Hank’s hair, Connor’s mouth on his, nipping almost playfully at Hank’s lower lip.

And Hank finds himself wondering if they have time for something more, except that it’s an absolutely mad thought. Connor deserves better than a quick fuck here, even if it is an expensive hotel, even if Connor doesn’t seem to know that himself. He’s bold, brash, aggressive when he pushes Hank back against the wall, his hands fisted in Hank’s jacket. Hank has to grasp Connor’s shoulders to stop him, trying to ignore that hint of hurt in Connor’s eyes.

“You’re going to wrinkle your suit,” Hank says weakly. He pulls Connor in, kissing his forehead and trying to lessen the blow. “Later, okay?”

There’s not going to be a later. Amanda is going to realize that Connor is her grandson, and she’ll take him home, and she’ll pay Hank and Ben richly for their trouble. Connor is clever - as soon as he knows about the reward, about just how much money it is, he’ll know why Hank did this at all. He’ll realize it was always a con.

And that will be it. That’s all there is here, all there can ever be.

Hank takes Connor’s hand and leads him out and prepares to seal his own fate anyway.

Connor fidgets the entire way through the first act of the ballet. He takes that coin out of his pocket, the one he’s had as long as he can remember, and traces his thumb over the grooves on the edge, rolling it back and forth over his fingers, passing it between his hands.

He’s good at coin tricks. “The other children at the orphanage were always fighting over the toys, and I didn’t want to fight, so...years of practice,” Connor told Hank on the train days ago, when Hank first noticed and asked about it.

Hank thinks of Connor’s wry smile, and he smiles too, even as on stage, the first act of the ballet ends with the two lovers separated.

Fitting, maybe, Hank thinks with dim humor as he takes Connor’s hand.

“Are you ready?” he asks as people rise around them for the intermission.

Connor passes the coin to his other hand and catches it neatly between his index and middle fingers before he pockets it. He reaches for his tie, adjusting it self-consciously, but when he says, “Yes,” he sounds as sure as Hank can ask.

They go up to the private boxes, and Hank has Connor wait outside. He says it’s so he can introduce him, but it’s just because he knows Amanda’s pain, what it is to lose a child, understands all too well why she’s decided that she’s had enough of it. If she refuses to look at him, or turns him away, Hank doesn’t want Connor to have to watch it happen.

Rose is the one who greets them when Hank knocks. She ushers him in, and gently says, “Amanda? Mister Anderson is here to see you, like we discussed.”

Hank can see enough of Amanda where she sits in her seat to watch her shoulders slump in defeat. “It’s never him, Rose,” she says. “You know it isn’t.”

“He was very convincing,” Rose says, going to Amanda and laying a hand on her shoulder. “I spent the entire afternoon with him...”

“If I may,” Hank says, “I was there, Your Grace, at the palace during the siege. I was a steward...”

It gets Amanda to look at him, at least. She’s as regal as Hank remembers, even if she is so much sadder. “That’s one I haven’t heard before.”

“If you’ll just listen to me...” Hank knows he should be gentler, that this is the time for tact, but they’re so close, and he’s desperate not to see Connor lose this.

“If I would listen,” Amanda repeats, rising now and stepping out of the box to look him over. “Do you know how many men have told me I need to listen over the last eighteen years of my life, because this time it’s really my grandson that they’ve brought home? There were two already who were convincing enough that I spent weeks and sometimes months with, but they were never my boy, not in the end. Take pity on an old woman’s heart, and let me enjoy the rest of the ballet in peace.”

She turns to go back to her seat, and Rose gives Hank and apologetic look. “You should go,” she says, but Hank shrugs away from her when she reaches for him.

“Your Grace,” he says, “if you would just speak with him, you’ll know.”

Amanda glances over her shoulder at him. “What was your name again?”

“Anderson.”

“No. Your first name.”

There’s something in her eye that Hank doesn’t recognize.

“It’s Hank,” he says. “I used to work...”

“You see,” Amanda says before he can get the words out, “what’s interesting to me, Hank, is that you thought you could hold auditions for young men to play Connor Arkait in Russia without your reputation preceding you here. Do you think I don’t still have friends there? That word wouldn’t make its way to me? Your story may be different and more clever, but you’re just another on a long list of names after the reward money. I’ve had more than enough of men like you to last me a lifetime.”

“Please,” Hank starts, but Amanda waves her hand then, and the men standing guard at the door come forward, grabbing him and throwing him out even as he tries to protest. He’s off balance, and he hits the ground hard when they push him through the door, his hip aching.

But that’s no pain at all compared to the shadow on Connor’s face when Hank looks up at him.

“Auditions?” he repeats weakly. He looks lost and broken, the same way he did on the ship deck when Hank pulled him back from the edge.

Hank wishes it was enough to take him in his arms here, but there’s no mending this, so all he can do is force himself to his feet.

“Connor,” he says, “honey...”

“Don’t,” Connor snaps with a true malice Hank has never heard from him. “Tell me about the auditions.”

“Listen to me,” Hank says. “It started out that way, but you remembered. The door in the wall...Connor, you have to know you’re...”

“ _You’re_ the one who told me about the door in the kitchen! I remembered something stupid and vague the way I always do, and you fed me something to make me feel like I knew it all along, so I could be...god, so I could be a better means to your end?”

“Connor, that’s _not_ what happened, and you know it.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Connor...” Hank tries to reach for him, but Connor backs out of his grasp, shaking his head, eyes shining with unspilled tears.

“Fuck you,” he mutters before he turns on his heel and walks away.

Hank wonders how two words can hurt so much.

He tries to go after him, but Connor disappears into the crowd, and by the time Hank gets through, he’s already gone.

He was always going to lose Connor. He knew that. But Connor was supposed to be back with his family, at least.

Instead, Hank has lost him, and he has nothing to show for it at all.

He does try to find him. He goes back to their seats just to find Connor’s empty. He checks the bathrooms, and outside the theater. There’s no sign of him.

There’s nowhere for Connor to go, at least. He doesn’t know Paris - he’s barely even been outside of Saint Petersburg. Hank assumes he hailed a cab back to the hotel, so he waits outside for another.

Ben joins him, standing at Hank’s side with a cigarette in his mouth. He doesn’t try to talk - that’s the best thing about Ben, how he always knows when it’s better to just be quiet.

“Perhaps there’s a way to fix this still,” he does say at some point. “A way to mend things...”

“We had one chance with the empress, and that was it.”

“I know,” Ben says, “but we were so close. Connor was so close.”

“Yes, he was,” Hank says, “but I don’t think that matters anymore.”

It didn’t matter when Cole was so close to turning the corner with his pneumonia, only to crash through the night. It didn’t matter when Hank was so close to keeping his wife, when they cried together for their son through the night and when Hank felt like they finally saw each other, at least, only to wake in the morning to an empty bed and a note saying she wasn’t coming back.

Hank knows all too well that it matters not one bit how close they come, that proximity does nothing to protect from the possibility of loss.

He’s just about to tell Ben so when he looks up and sees Amanda leaving the theater early. She’s been crying, it’s plain, but she holds her head high as her driver escorts her to her car.

She takes no notice of either of them, off to the side, hidden in the shadows.

“Ben,” Hank says, “can you make it back to the hotel on your own.”

Ben looks at him. “What are you going to do?”

“Something stupid.”

Hank moves before Ben can stop him. The driver opens the back door for Amanda, but as he closes it and crosses around the back, Hank is already sliding into the driver’s seat.

The keys are already in the ignition, the car running to keep it warm on the cold night, and Hank tries not to think too hard about how he could go to jail for this as he pulls out.

The driver is yelling behind them, but Amanda, to her credit, speaks steadily when she asks, “Is this your plan then, Mister Anderson? Kidnapping?”

Hank meets her eyes in the rear view mirror, and he knows that resigned expression all too well. When you’ve lost everything, Hank has found, fear is a hard thing to feel.

“I’m sorry, but you have to talk to him,” he says. “I’m going to take you to our hotel. Just hear what he has to say, and then I’ll drive you home if you like.”

“You’re presuming you won’t be arrested by that point.”

“Yeah, well. I guess I’m hoping you’ll choose not to press charges.”

“That’s a very bold hope on your part.”

“Please,” Hank says. “It’s him. I promise it is.”

Amanda sighs, looking out the window. “I don’t know why your word should mean anything to me, but you’ve given me no choice, it seems.”

It’s about the best Hank can hope for.

They park outside the hotel, and Hank goes to help her from the car even if Amanda is already stepping out onto the curb before he can. “He remembers your rose garden,” he tells her as he walks with her up to Connor’s room. “It’s one of the first things he told me he remembered…first door on the left there,” he says when they reach their floor.

“You aren’t coming in?” Amanda asks.

“I think my part in this is done,” Hank says. “Just...be kind to him? He didn’t know about any of this.”

Amanda studies him, her face softening a touch when she nods.

“Thank you,” Hank says. He hears her knocking on the door as he turns away, and it’s so tempting to wait and try to hear the conversation.

But this isn’t for him, and Connor needs to do this on his own, so he doesn’t stay.

* * *

Connor is throwing his things into his suitcase with reckless abandon when he hears the knock on the door.

It's Hank, he's sure, or Ben. There's no one else who would be looking for him or who cares where he goes, but Connor doesn't have any interest in talking to him.

"Go away, Hank!" he snaps at the door, the tears welling hot in his eyes even as he tries to blink them back.

The thing of it is, he was used to not knowing who he was or where he belonged. It hurt, it always hurt, but it was a sort of dim ache somewhere in the background. It was something he learned long ago how to bear, something he was comfortable with.

This? This fresh hope, this foolish wanting of something he had already convinced himself he would never have? It's like he's eight years old again, wandering the streets of Saint Petersburg, crying for _someone_ without even being able to remember who he's looking for.

It hurts. It fucking burns.

And Connor can't bear what Hank has done to him, but he also can't believe that he let this happen. He shouldn't have gone with him in the first place, shouldn't have even given Hank the opportunity to whisper his pretty lies in his ear. Connor knows better than that. He knows how to protect himself - it was one of the very first things he learned - but he let himself forget all that for a pair of deep blue eyes.

He's angry with Hank. But he's also angry, furious, with himself.

There's another knock on the door as Connor throws the secondhand suit he bought with Hank into the trash. "I don't want to talk to you!" he yells, but the door opens anyway.

Connor is trying to figure out if he's angrier at himself for forgetting to lock it or at Hank for just barging in as he turns on his heel, but it isn't Hank stepping into the room.

"Oh," he breathes, cheeks heating as he bows awkwardly.

"That's not necessary," Amanda says quickly as she crosses the room to him. "Is your name really Connor?"

Connor swallows hard, lowering himself onto the edge of the bed. Her voice is familiar, like something from some distant dream. "It is. Why...why are you here?"

Amanda seats herself by the window, tilting her head as she looks him over. "Your friend is very persistent."

"He isn't my friend."

"Perhaps not, but he's a man who's risking kidnapping charges all so you and I might sit here and talk for a few minutes, so that's what we'll do, even if I’ve had enough of being conned and tricked."

"I don't want to trick you," Connor says. "I just wanted to know if I belonged somewhere. I didn't want to hurt you."

Amanda sighs, giving him a sad smile. "You do look like him. Others have, but you do most of all. Hank says you remember a rose garden?"

Connor nods. "That's all it is, though. It just this vague memory of a rose garden that could have been anywhere. I don't remember much of anything about who I was, just the roses and the door in the wall and running from something on the ice. I wish there was something better I could say to make this easier for both of us, but I can't."

He slips a hand into his pocket, retrieving his coin and holding it tight in his hand while Amanda watches him with interest. "What do you have there?"

"This?" Connor asks. "It's just a coin. It's the only thing I had with me, from before."

"Can I see it?"

Connor has always been protective of it. The other children at the orphanage always wanted to see it after he learned to do tricks, and he would never hand it over because it was the only thing he had. He couldn't bear to lose the last tether to whatever his life was and whoever loved him in it.

It feels strange to let it go now, but he does, leaning forward to drop it into Amanda's hand. She studies it for a moment, tracing a finger around the edge of it the same way Connor always does, her eyes glazing over with an emotion Connor can't quite read.

"I moved to Paris before the revolution," she tells him finally. "Rose was here, and I was looking for a quieter life. But it was so difficult to leave my family behind in Russia...my grandson most of all. He always liked coins...had a whole collection of them, actually. Everyone in our family would bring them back to him when they went abroad. He had others from France...he may have even had this one, for all I know. But his face lit up when I gave it to him anyway." Amanda looks up at him, tears welling in her eyes. "You don't remember?"

Connor's vision blurs, and he realizes he's crying too. "I don't," he says. "I just remember missing you."

Amanda watches him for another moment, and then she moves, folding him up into a warm embrace. "Connor," she whispers into his hair, and he can't help the sob that wracks his shoulders as he clings to her. "My boy. It's okay...it's okay."

Connor loses track of how long he cries against her, but he does know that she never lets him go.

* * *

Hank quietly checks out of the hotel that night. Ben decides to stay for a while - he and Rose hit it off after they were both left behind at the theater, apparently - but Hank just wants to go.

He doesn't even know where.

He doesn't have the reward money that was supposed to be his ticket out, and he doesn't want to go back to Russia. He ends up sitting at the train station for hours, staring at the destinations, trying to understand why he ever thought getting away from Russia would fix anything inside him.

He's still sitting there, still trying to decide where to go when nowhere is home, when one of the empress' assistants finds him.

"You left without the reward money," the assistant says. "The duchess would like to keep her promise."

"I think it's enough that she didn't have me arrested," Hank replies.

"Please? She wants to speak with you. I'm not to take no for an answer."

Hank doesn't want to face Connor again, and not just because of how badly he hurt him. Connor is the prince now, and Hank was only ever just a steward, even if he's worn other hats over the years. He doesn't want to know how uneven their footing is.

Maybe that makes him a coward, but Hank has never claimed to be brave. Not where it matters.

But he also doesn't want to fight it out with the poor girl just trying to do her job in the middle of a crowded station, so he does let her drive him back to the empress' home. It's less ornate than the palace, but only just, and Hank feels small as she leads him under high-ceilings and past expensive tapestries to Amanda's study.

"You summoned me, Your Grace?" he asks once they're alone.

"I'd like to give you what you're owed, Mister Anderson. I keep my word."

"Hank is fine," Hank says. "Is Connor...I don't know. Is he alright?"

"He remembers a bit more when there's someone to remind him, but it's funny. He doesn't know much about who he was, but so much about him is still the same."

"Yeah," Hank says, tongue heavy in his mouth. "That's good."

Amanda gestures at the case of rubles. "You were the steward in the palace, weren't you? You saved my life, and his, and now you've brought him back to me. I want to thank you for it. Please, take the money."

"I don't...it's okay. I'm just glad he's home." Hank turns to go, but then he says, "Listen, he has nightmares and sleepwalks sometimes. He almost hurt himself when we were traveling here. I don't know if he's told you yet, but someone should look out for him."

Amanda tilts her head, studies him like she thinks she's understanding something. "If you won't take the money, at least accept my thanks for taking care of him and safely restoring him to me."

Hank thinks of Connor's arms around him and Connor's mouth on his, of the way Connor made him feel like maybe he could be good for the first time in years, like maybe he wanted to try, and he knows that Connor took care of him, too.

"Yeah," he manages to say. "You're welcome."

Hank shows himself out. He walks past a sitting room with bookshelves lining the wall, the door ajar, and he sees Connor seated in one of the chairs, his legs crossed over the arm, a book open in his lap.

He should hurry past, but Hank lingers there, looking at him, long enough for Connor for raise his head and for the two of them to lock eyes.

Hank gives him a weak smile and then ducks his head, continuing on his way.

He doesn't look back, and Connor doesn't come after him.

When Hank gets outside and starts walking, he wonders what his plan is. He knows he should just go back to the station, decide where he's going next or just board a train to anywhere.

But he's tired, and something about seeing Connor has taken away his motivation to get out of Paris as soon as he can.

He goes back to their hotel instead, and he's relieved to find that Ben is in his room and not out with Rose somewhere.

"Hank," he says, surprised, when he opens the door. "What are you doing here?"

Hank shakes his head. "Do you want to go get a drink?"

Ben knows all too well that when Hank can't run from his problems, he tries to drown them instead. But maybe he also knows how low Hank is, because he just claps him on the shoulder and says, "Yeah, sure. Let me get my coat."

It can't make anything better, but Hank also doesn't think things can get much worse, and at least he isn't alone.

* * *

Connor remembers more about his childhood that day alone than he has in all his life. Amanda takes his vague memories and fills in the pieces, and every now and then, something she says will make another memory flare to life, a brighter picture. She doesn't have as much as she would like, but Amanda kept as many of her grandchildren's things as she could. She has pictures that Connor and his siblings drew her, books they used to read, records they enjoyed. Connor doesn't always remember them, but he does find that he enjoys the same songs and stories now as he did when he was younger.

"More will come back," Amanda tells him when they sit together that evening. "You always were impatient, but it's just going to take some time."

Connor nods, pushing his food around his plate. He can feel Amanda's eyes on him, and it isn't long before she says, "Connor. What's wrong?"

"Hm? No, it's...nothing's wrong. I'm just thinking."

Amanda's eyes soften when she smiles at him. Connor remembers now that he always liked that about her, that he always knew he was loved because she had a specific, warm smile that was so very different from the one she used with people outside their family.

"I know this is difficult for you," Amanda says. "If you need some time alone, if that would be helpful..."

"It isn't that," Connor says quickly. He's spent so much time alone that he doesn't believe it will ever be any kind of solution for him again.

Amanda watches him for another moment, and then she says, "You know, Hank was here this morning."

Connor scoffs at that. "I'm sure he wanted to collect his reward as quickly as he could."

Amanda tilts her head. Connor can see her thinking about something, but when she speaks, it's to say, "He told me about your nightmares, and the sleepwalking. He was worried about you."

Connor shrugs and looks back at his plate. He tries not to remember that night on the ship after Hank woke him and pulled him back, tries not to think that it was the safest he's ever felt from whatever invisible thing is always haunting him.

"Connor," Amanda says gently, waiting until he looks up at her. "He didn't take the money. He didn't want it."

That surprises Connor. His mind chokes on that as he tries to swallow it down. "Why not?"

"I don't know," Amanda says. "He said it was enough that you were home."

Connor sits there for a long time, trying to decide if it absolves Hank of what he originally planned to do. Refusing to take the money now doesn't change that it was always his intention to trick Connor and Amanda both, all for...all for what, exactly?

Connor hasn't properly considered that, the _why_ behind everything, but now he does. Hank isn't materialistic. Connor doesn't think he would deceive him or anyone else in favor of some kind of scheme to get rich quick.

And then, unbidden, Connor thinks of all the nights he lay in his orphanage bed and wished he had enough money to just leave, and it seems entirely too obvious.

"Shit," he whispers, because in the midst of his anger, he forgot that he and Hank understand each other so well because they both know what it is to be unable to outrun their ghosts. "Sorry," he says when he looks up at Amanda. "Do you know where he is? I mean, did he say where he was going to go after this?"

"He didn't. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Connor says. "Can I borrow the car?" Ben is still in Paris, at least. He has to hope that Hank at least didn't leave without at least telling Ben where he was going.

"Simon will drive you..."

"I'd rather go alone," Connor says quickly, "if you don't mind."

He knows that Amanda worries. She already told him most of what happened after she lost him, how she always thought she would never let him go again if he was ever restored to her. He knows all too well how close her despair lives.

Still, she manages a smile and says, "The keys are in the vehicle. Try to call if you'll be out late."

Connor is too old for a curfew, but he's also never had one before. He only ever left the orphanage to work in the factory, so the request hardly bothers him at all. It just feels nice.

He goes around the table to kiss her cheek before he leaves.

When Connor reaches the hotel, he finds Ben in the foyer, on his way out. Ben sees him first. "Connor!" he yells across the room, not a care at all for his volume. Connor makes his way over to him, and Ben awkwardly extends a hand in greeting. It occurs to Connor that they haven't talked since everything that happened and that Ben doesn't know where the two of them stand, so he swats Ben’s hand out of the way and throws his arms around his shoulders instead.

"Hey," Ben says when he recovers from the surprise. "You doing okay, kid?"

Connor pulls away, glancing around the lobby for another familiar face before he can help himself. "I'm trying to find Hank. Is he here?"

Ben's smile fades at that. "He left a few days ago. I don't know where he went."

"He didn't tell you?" Hank and Ben have been all the other had for years. Connor doesn't know what it means if Hank didn't even tell Ben.

"He wanted some time to himself. He said he would call when he was ready, but between us, I think he's probably still in Paris somewhere."

Connor raises an eyebrow. "Why do you think that?"

"Because you're here. And Hank's never really known how to walk away from people."

Connor fishes the car keys from his pocket. "Tell him I was looking for him if you hear from him, please."

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know," Connor says, because it's better than saying he's going to drive down every last Paris street in the hopes that he can find Hank.

And he does. He drives obnoxiously slowly, block by block, during the last hour of daylight, trying to see every last face of the people walking past. It's a long shot, but he doesn't know what else to do. He drives along the river and works his way to the outskirts of the city.

It's dark by then, and he thinks that he should go back soon. Amanda will be worried, and he's far enough out that there isn't much to see on these roads save for trees and the occasional squirrel running across the road before him. It's starting to rain, too.

He tells himself he'll turn around at the next opportunity, and that he doesn't know what else he was expecting even as disappointment wells forcefully inside him. Of course he wasn't going to find Hank this way.

He tries to tell himself it doesn't matter. There will be tomorrow, and the next day. He knows where to find Ben, and so at least he has some link to Hank. He'll find him eventually.

It doesn't do much to assuage how dejected Connor feels, but it is what it is. If he managed to find Amanda after all these years, he can certainly find Hank after a few days.

He doesn't allow himself to consider that perhaps Hank isn't interested in being found by him, that Hank fucked up but maybe he did, too. He tries not to dwell on how he at least should have let Hank talk when Hank begged him to listen.

He owed him that, at least. Especially after whatever grew between them. He owed him _something_. He should have...

The road is clear before him, and then it isn't. Connor's headlights catch on a family standing in the middle of it, a man and a woman and their children. They're pale and bloodless like ghosts, their faces all familiar from Amanda's portraits, and Connor feels his blood run cold as he slams on the brakes.

The roads are wet, and Connor isn't used to driving. He loses control, spinning out, and the car overturns as he tries to right himself. His head smacks into the window, and there's blood in his eyes, his head throbbing.

He tries to free himself, to orient himself well enough that he can climb out the passenger door since it's facing upwards, but he can't get enough breath in his lungs to extricate himself from the wreckage.

His vision blurs, but he can still see clearly enough to see the pale man watching him from the road where his family stood.

It's a familiar face.

Connor can't quite come up with the name, but he remembers the man coming to the palace before Connor's life fell apart.

He remembers him after that, too. The night he fled with Amanda over the ice. He remembers being pursued, and being afraid...he remembers the man grabbing his ankle and saying he was cursed...the curse, it was _his_ curse...

Connor breathes hard, trying to collect himself, to keep himself conscious, but his vision swims, and he blacks out anyway, the man watching him from the road all the while.

* * *

Hank couldn’t bring himself to leave Paris. He tells himself it’s because he didn’t have the money, that it would have been unwise to spend the last of what he had on a train ticket to somewhere he didn’t even want to go.

He tells himself it doesn’t have anything to do with Connor.

It’s a lie, of course, because for as much as Hank has lied to other people over the years, he’s still best at lying to himself.

So he finds work. There’s a dairy farm just outside the city, and they agreed to give him a place to stay and modest wages in exchange for his help. Hank can’t go back to the life he was living, and he can’t go anywhere else without money, so this will do, at least for the time. It’s honest work, at least. He could use some of that.

He finishes cleaning up for the evening and then calls Ben’s room at the hotel. When he left his friend the previous morning, he was a wreck, and he wants to at least let him know he’s okay. Ben will worry if he doesn’t.

Ben picks up on the first ring. “Hank!” he exclaims when he recognizes the voice on the other end. “Shit, I was worried about you. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. Sorry to worry you. I’m...”

He’s starting to explain where he is, but Ben cuts him off. “Connor was looking for you.”

“I...what?”

“He came by the hotel and bumped into me. He was looking for you, told me to tell you so if I talked to you.”

“Why would he...” Hank trails off before he can finish the question. His mind is caught on this new information, churning around it.

“I don’t know,” Ben says. “He wants to see you, though. You’re still in Paris, right?”

“Yeah,” Hank says weakly.

“Well,” Ben says, “you know where to find him, I guess. If you want to.”

And Hank can almost hear the smile in Ben’s voice, like he knows Hank wants nothing more.

The reasonable thing to do would be to sleep on it, figure out what he’s going to say. Hank tries to do that, even goes to his room and starts to turn down his bed until he realizes it’s no use.

He asks if he can borrow the farm truck, and that’s how he ends up driving into the city at night. He doesn’t have the faintest idea what he’ll say when he gets to Amanda’s house, but that’s a problem for another time.

It’s raining, and the truck’s dim headlights do little to light the dark roads, so it’s slow going. Hank can see the city lights up ahead, and he’s so distracted by them that he almost misses the car on the side of the road.

“Shit,” he says under his breath. The vehicle is overturned on its side, the engine smoking a bit.

Hank pulls off, hurrying out of the truck and steeling himself for whatever’s inside. The car is in bad shape, so the driver certainly is, too.

He prepares himself for blood, for someone badly fucked up, or maybe dead.

He still isn’t prepared for what he finds.

“Connor!” he yells when he sees him. What the fuck is he doing out here? Connor’s eyes are closed, his face bruised and his head split open, but he’s breathing. Hank can see the slight rise and fall of his chest. “Fuck. Hold on, honey.”

Connor stirs a bit, shifting in the seat and opening an eye the smallest bit. “Hank?”

“Hold on,” Hank says again, prying the passenger door open and reaching in. “Take my hand, sweetheart.”

“Hank,” Connor says again. His speech is slow, slurred. There’s blood in his mouth. “Go back,” he says. “The curse...I remember now...it’s not...not safe...”

“Honey.” Hank grits his teeth. “Come on. Take my hand.”

Connor is fading out again, his head lolling back against the seat, so Hank hoists himself onto the top of the car where he's able to reach further in. "Hey," he says, going to his knees and then bending into the car, far enough that he can get a hand on Connor's cheek. "Come on, Con. Stay with me."

Connor is mumbling something. Hank catches something that sounds like "made me forget" and "wants me dead" and "kill you", but it's so muffled that he can't be sure of any of it. He grasps Connor's upper arm tight in one hand and squeezes.

"Connor," he says firmly, and Connor's eyes flutter open. "Is anything broken? Do you know?"

"No...I don't think so."

"Okay. I'm going to try to pull you out, okay?"

Connor shakes his head vehemently, glaring up at him. "You have to _go_ ," he hisses. "He's here."

"Who?" Hank furrows his brow as he tries to understand. "Connor, who?"

Connor is opening his mouth to answer - Hank can see the tears in his eyes and the frustration and fear warring on his face, but what he's going to say, Hank never hears.

The car shifts under him, knocking him off balance. And then it overturns entirely.

Hank doesn't manage to get free of it. It lands on top of him, and he hears the air rushing out of the tires, lowering the vehicle to the ground, pressed on top of him just enough to cage him in.

"Hank!" he hears Connor yelling in a hoarse voice. Hank swears through gritted teeth, groaning, trying to twist free. He hears Connor opening the car door just for it to immediately slam shut, Connor's strangled scream of frustration.

"Don't," he hears Connor begging. Hank cranes his neck, trying to figure out who Connor is talking to, but he can't see, can't get enough air in his lungs to tell Connor it's okay.

Hank feels someone kicking his hand away from the car as he tries to brace himself against it, the carefully polished boot pressing down on his wrist, pinning his hand to the ground.

He looks up, and he's surprised when he recognizes the man standing over him, too. That self-proclaimed holy man, the one Connor's family brought in to help his younger brother, Niles...

He said he would heal him, that he was some kind of mystic, but though Connor's brother would get better for a time, he never got better for long. He was banished from the palace after a time, cast out as a fraud. Hank always thought he had a stupid name...Kamski, or something like that. He had a pale, sort of ageless face, but his skin is sallow now, no light in his eyes.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Hank manages to get out, gritting his teeth.

"Mister Anderson," Kamski says, his voice all silk without any of the softness. "You're always in my way. Did you know that?"

Hank hears Connor tugging at the handle of the car door, although it doesn't open again. Hank tries to wrench himself free of the car once more, but it's no use.

"It's a shame," Kamski continues. "I don't have any quarrel with you, or any common man...but you just have this knack for ending up between me and him."

"What the fuck is he to you?" Hank asks. "The Arkait line is over. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"What I wanted," Kamski says, a little smile at the corner of his mouth, even if there's no joy in it, "is to put every last one of them in this earth so they could never return. But this one..." And Hank doesn't know what Kamski does then, but he hears the thud, and Connor's whimper of pain. "Keeps slipping away from me. All these years, my magic almost entirely worn out, all just to see him to his fucking grave. So help me, I’m taking him with me before I go."

Hank notices the glowing glass at Kamski's belt then, something like a lantern. It's a cold blue, something fluttering about inside like the light itself is alive. Kamski has kept one hand on it this entire time, so it must be important.

Hank won't reach it, not trapped the way he is. But if he can distract the bastard long enough that Connor can break the window of the car to slip through, Connor might be able to.

"Rumor was you made a deal with the devil," Hank says, because he has to let Connor know somehow. "That true? Your soul in exchange for a little lantern?"

Kamski smirks at that. "Any deal I've made is my business, Hank. I am sorry to do this - I'm sure you're a good man - but…"

Hank doesn't let him finish it. He doesn't have his full weight behind him, but he twists enough to get a hand behind Kamski's knee, and he's still strong enough to take him to the ground.

It happens fast, the car pressing down on him harder, Kamski struggling with him, Hank clinging to his leg and beating him wherever he can reach. He hears glass break on the other side of the car and the door open, sees Connor limping around the hood of the vehicle out of the corner of his eye a moment later. Kamski sees him coming a moment too late, doesn’t turn his head enough to protect himself from Connor kicking him across the mouth.

It dazes him just enough for Hank to pull the lantern free of his belt and throw it to Connor.

Connor drops it to the ground, places his foot over it and puts his weight on it until the glass begins to crack...

And then he stops, staring at something in front of him.

Kamski kicks Hank across the side of the head, making his ear ring while he tries to pull free of Hank’s grasp.

“Connor,” Hank says hoarsely, “do it.”

“They’ll disappear if you do,” Kamski says, kicking free of Hank’s hold and righting himself. He leans against the car, taking a slow step towards Connor. “The dreams won’t come anymore. You know that. You’ll never see them again. You can’t remember them on your own, can you, _Your Grace_?”

Hank turns his head, and now he sees them, the family Connor lost. They’re just an illusion, a trick...they’re not alive, but what he wouldn’t give to see Cole again, even if it was just like this. He knows how strong that allure is, how distracting and debilitating...

“Connor,” Hank says, looking back to him as Kamski takes another step forward, as the car presses just a little harder into him. “Honey. Look at me.” Connor does, and Hank says, “Trust me, sweetheart. Do it.”

Kamski tries to dive forward, to knock Connor off balance long enough to get the lantern back, but Connor lowers his full weight onto the glass. The tiny fissures grow with a splintering sound.

The cold blue light inside turns angry red, and Kamski howls like he’s been wounded. He falls to his knees, clawing at Connor.

“You’ll never be free,” he spits at Connor’s feet. “You’ll never be safe. There’s no future for you.”

“Maybe not,” Connor says, “but there’s certainly no future for you.”

Connor crushes the lantern underfoot once and then again. It cracks and finally breaks, that light escaping somewhere they can’t see. Kamski wails like he’s dying, and he folds in on himself like he’s nothing.

He fades away to dust, and Connor barely looks at him as he moves past, going to Hank’s side and getting his fingers under the chassis of the car.

“Help me,” Connor says, and together they lift the body of it high enough that Hank can twist himself free.

Hank lies in the road, panting, and Connor falls at his side, helping him to sit up. Hank runs his fingers over Connor’s face, the swelling under his eye, while Connor does the same to him, each desperate to assure themselves that the other is alive.

Connor collapses into Hank, tucking himself against him and sobbing weakly into his shoulder while Hank runs his fingers through his hair.

“He made me forget everything,” Connor whispers. “It never made sense to the doctors why I couldn’t remember _anything_ , but he made it that way. I can’t even remember my family...they’re just gone.”

“I know,” Hank says into his hair. “I know.”

They stay like that for so long, holding each other in the rain while Connor tries to get everything, his pain and his rage, out. When Hank feels him starting to shake, he squeezes his shoulder and says, “Come on. We need to get you to a hospital.”

Connor shakes his head, pressing his forehead into Hank’s neck. “Can you take me home? I just want to go home.”

Hank should insist, probably. Instead, he just pushes Connor’s curls away from his face and says, “Yeah. Sure, sweetheart.”

He wraps an arm around Connor as they walk to the truck, helps him into the passenger seat. Before he shuts the door, Connor grasps him by the wrist. “I was trying to find you,” he says softly.

That pulls hard at Hank’s heart, his throat feeling tight. “I was trying to find you, too.”

“You did.”

“Yeah,” Hank says, closing a hand around the back of Connor’s neck and kissing his forehead. “So did you.”

 _And not just tonight_ , he can’t bring himself to say, but if the warm smile on his face as Hank pulls away from him is any indication, Connor still seems to know.

For once, Hank doesn’t mind that Connor is so good at reading him. He reaches for Connor’s hand, laces their fingers together as they drive past the wrecked car, towards the city lights bright ahead of them like a beacon calling them home.

And it’s Connor’s home, not Hank’s. That’s true. But Connor is beside him, and for now that feels like enough of a place to belong.

* * *

Amanda is awake, wearing her dressing gown and pacing back and forth when they walk in. The relief on her face is evident, but it falls away and is replaced by concern just as quickly when she sees the condition Connor is in.

"I'm okay," Connor says when she gently takes his face in her hands and turns his head left and right, surveying the damage.

"Simon," Amanda says to her steward, who stands waiting by the wall. "Call the police and tell them he's home, please. And then get some ice for his face." When Simon disappears into the next room to use the phone, Amanda asks, "What in god's name happened?"

"It was raining," Connor says, "and I'm not used to driving. I overturned the car...I'm sorry."

Amanda wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him in. "It's okay," she whispers. "We'll take care of it tomorrow. I'm just glad you're home." She looks to Hank when she releases Connor from her arms. "It's good to see you again, Mister Anderson."

"It's still just Hank," Hank says, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Hank found me on the road," Connor says.

Amanda reaches out to grasp Hank by the arm. "Your timing remains impeccable, then."

Hank wonders if Connor ever intends to tell her about Kamski, but if he does, it's certainly not a story for tonight, not after they're all worn ragged in their own ways.  
"Yeah," Hank says. "I guess it does."

It's never felt to him like his luck is very good, honestly. If anything, he's long felt that he's cursed in his own way. But he keeps managing to at least be where Connor needs him to be, and that puts everything in a different, brighter light.

It's well past midnight by the time Amanda has convinced herself Connor is going to be alright and that she's done everything for him she can. After she goes to bed, Connor looks at Hank from across the kitchen table, lowering the pack of ice from his face so Hank can see both of his eyes. "I'm tired," he says.

Hank's own eyes are heavy, too. He nods and stifles a yawn.

"Do you..." Connor starts, and then stops again, collecting himself. "You can stay, if you'd rather not drive home."

It's the first rule of serving the royal family. Don't interact with them. Don't spend any more time in their chambers than necessary to clean them.

Hank still reaches across the table. He takes the ice from Connor, and then grasps his hand, squeezing him tightly. "Yeah," he says. Fuck the rules. "Okay."

Hank brings the ice with him, and he holds it to Connor's face for him as they lie beside each other in Connor's bed. Connor closes his eyes and Hank is tired too, but he watches him and counts the freckles on his cheeks, and when Connor catches Hank looking at him, a small smile spreads over his face, saying so much without speaking.

Connor kisses him, and Hank gently lays a hand on his swollen cheek, threads his fingers through those curls he loves so much. It never becomes anything more than a languid, slow exploration of one another, but that's all Hank wants, to feel Connor breathing against him.

And Hank thinks that despite how each of them has feared their own circumstances, neither of them can be so terribly cursed if they're here together.

And it’s possible Connor is thinking so too, because he whispers, "I remember you, you know. From that night at the palace. I barely remember anything, but I remember you."

Maybe their paths keep crossing at the right times because they're meant to be together by some sort of divine providence, two parts of the same whole. Or maybe they're just two unlucky people who have managed to outrun their own misfortune only when it really counts. Maybe Hank is trying to see signs and symbols where there are none, and there's no rhyme or reason to this at all, but does that matter so long as they're both here?

Does anything matter about their strange circumstances save that, against all odds, Connor is home and they're together?

Hank listens to Connor's breathing even out, feels the gentle rise and fall of his chest as Hank threads his fingers through his hair and he sleeps peacefully on.

No, Hank thinks as he wraps an arm around Connor's shoulders, pulling him in closer.

The rest doesn't matter at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Come read my other fic threads and holler at me on [twitter!](http://twitter.com/Jolli_Bean) You can also find me on [tumblr](http://jolli-bean.tumblr.com)


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